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The Genesis of the American 

Indian 



By 

Ales Hrdli£ka 



Extract from 

Proceedings of the Nineteenth International Congress 
of Americanists, Washington, December, 1915 



Washington, D. C. 
1917 



/ 



THE GENESIS OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN 
By Ales Hrdlicka 

THE greatest problem of American anthropology is that of the genesis of 
the Indians, who when first seen by white men were already spread over 
the entire American continent as well as all of its habitable islands. 
Without discussing any of the speculations connected with the subject, we 
will approach directly the several questions into which this problem resolves 
itself. The foremost of these is that of the unity or plurality of the Indian race. 
We know that the aboriginal population of America was divided into a great many 
tribes and even a number of what might be called nations, often hostile to one 
another; we have learned that there were many different languages and dialects, 
remarkable differences in culture and the material results of culture, and also 
marked differences in the physiognomy, color, details of physique, and in the 
behavior of the different groups of Indians — all of which would seem to indicate 
that there might have existed some, if not considerable, racial diversity. 

But if these matters are subjected to careful and comprehensive scrutiny, 
we find that the various differences presented by the Indians are often more 
apparent than real; that actual and important differences are in no case of suffi- 
cient weight to permit of any racial dissociation on that basis; and that the more 
substantial differences which exist between the tribes are everywhere underlaid by 
fundamental similarities and identities that outweigh them and which speak 
strongly not only against any plurality of race on the American continent but for 
the general original unity of the Indians. 

We thus see that the American languages, while not infrequently differing 
considerably in phonetics, vocabulary, and even structure, belong nevertheless 
to one fundamental class — the polysynthethic — and present other important 
resemblances in their complexity of grammar, ideas of gender, formation of 
numerals, modes of plurality, formation and role of prefixes and suffixes, relative 
values of the pronoun, dialectic differences in the two sexes, etc., which, taken 
together, speak for one and the same (though doubtless ancient and probably 
extra-American) parentage. 

In a similar way we find that, notwithstanding numerous more or less 
pronounced local differences in detail, there are in all tribes many deep-seated and 
significant evidences of a common culture. They exist in the stone, clay, wood, 
and bone technique; in weaving and basketry; in methods of fire-making; in cloth- 
ing and the limited household furniture; in agriculture; in games; in all that 
relates to medicine, religion, conceptions of nature; in folklore; in social organiza- 
tion; in the usages of war; and in still other important and intimate phases of 
Indian life. 

Going still further, we find essential resemblances in the mind and be- 
havior of the Indians throughout the two continents. One who has become 
well acquainted with the mentality of the natives in any region of either North 
America or South America, will find, on eliminating the local environmental 

559 



560 



XIX International Congress of Americanists 



peculiarities, faithful counterparts in all other regions; and the behavior of the 
Indian is much the same everywhere in his family and tribal relations, in the 
care of the young, in all his functions. 

The constitution of the Indian, using the term in its modern medical sense, 
is also much the same throughout the two continents. He is everywhere readily 
affected and falls an easy prey to alcohol; he is physically enduring, without 
being actually exceptionally strong; he is little if at all subject to various degener- 
ating and constitutional diseases, such as cretinism, rachitis, cancer, insanity, 
etc., but is everywhere readily affected by tuberculosis, trachoma, measles, 
smallpox, and sexual infections. 

Last, but not least, there are the radical resemblances and identities of body 
and skeleton. Some of these features are: 

1. The Indian's color differs, according to localities and habits, from dusky 
yellowish, or yellowish-brown, to that of solid chocolate; but the fundamental 
color is moderate brown, or, more correctly, yellowish-brown. 

2. The hair, as a rule, is black (to reddish-black after exposure); it ranges 
about medium in coarseness, being never fine; and it is straight, except in the old 
or unkempt, where there may be slight irregular waviness, and in the men who 
wear long hair, where the free ends may show some tendency to turn upward. 
The beard is scanty, and on the sides of the face generally completely absent; 
and it is nevtr long. On the body there is no hair except a little in the axilla 
and on the pubis, though even there it is usually sparse. 

3. The Indian is generally free from special characteristic odor appreciable to 
the white man. His heart-beat is slow. His other functions are everywhere 
much alike. The size of the head and of the brain cavity, though differing 
considerably in individuals and also to some extent with the mean stature of 
the tribes, averages on the whole slightly less than that of white men and women 
of similar height. 

4. His eyes, as a rule, are above medium- to dark-brown in color, with 
decidedly bluish conjunctiva in younger children, pearly white in older subjects, 
dirty-yellowish in adults; and the eye-slits show a prevailing tendency, more or 
less noticeable in different tribes, to a slight or moderate upward slant; that is, 
the external canthi are frequently more or less higher than the internal. 

5. The nasal bridge is moderately to well arched; the nose is frequently 
strongly developed in the males and often convex ("aquiline") in shape, but is 
lower, shorter, and more commonly straight or even concave in the females; 
it is never very high, nor so fine or slender as in whites, nor again so thick and 
broad as in the negro ; and its relative proportions in the living as well as in the 
skull (barring individual and some localized exceptions), are prevalently medium 
or mesorhinic. The malar regions are, as a rule, rather large or prominent. 
The suborbital or canine fossae are in general more shallow than in whites. 

6. The mouth is generally fairly large to large, and the same is true of the 
palate. The lips average from medium to somewhat fuller than in whites, are 
never thin (except after loss of front teeth and in case of alveolar absorption), and 
never so thick as in the negro; and the lower facial region shows in general a 
medium degree of prognathism, standing, like the relative proportions of the nose, 
nearly midway between those in the whites and those characteristic of the 
negroes, though frequently closer to the white. The chin is well developed , though 




KALMUCK BOY 



Hrdlicka — Genesis of the American Indian 561 

on the average somewhat less prominent than in whites, and is. not seldom square. 
The entire lower jaw is on the average somewhat larger than in whites. The 
teeth are of medium size when compared with those of primitive man in general, 
but frequently are perceptibly larger when contrasted with those of the cultured 
white American or European ; the upper incisors of the Indian present throughout, 
with rare individual exceptions, an especially important feature: they are on the 
inside, or lingually, characteristically shovel-shaped, that is, deeply and peculiarly 
concave, with a marked cingulum. The ears are rather large. 

7. The neck, as a rule, is of only moderate length, and never thin in health; 
the chest is somewhat deeper than in average whites; the breasts of the women 
are of medium size to somewhat above medium, and often more or less conical 
in form. In the females, the disproportion between the pelvic region and the 
shoulders is less marked than in whites. There is a complete absence of stea- 
topygy, and the lumbar curve is moderate. The lower limbs are somewhat less 
shapely and generally less full than in whites; the calf in the majority is moderate, 
less than the average in either the whites or the negroes. 

8. The hands and feet, as a rule, are of relatively moderate dimensions, 
and what is among the most important distinguishing features of the 
Indian, the relative proportions of his forearms to arms and those of the distal 
parts of the lower limbs to the proximal (or, in the skeleton, the radio-humeral 
and tibio-femoral indices), are in general, throughout the two parts of the conti- 
nent, of similar average value, which differs from that of both the whites and 
the negroes, standing again often in an intermediary position. 

9. In the Indian skeleton, from Canada to Tierra del Fuego, besides the 
characteristics hitherto mentioned, point after point of important resemblance 
or identity are met with which mark unequivocally the many distinct tribes 
as descendants of one and the same group of humanity or race, and serve to 
distinguish them from other races, except those with which they have a common 
prehistoric origin. Such features include, besides those relating to the skull, 
such highly distinctive traits as platybrachy in the humerus, platymery in the 
femur, and frequent platycnsemy in the tibia; high frequency of perforation 
of the septum in the humerus, great rarity of the supracondyloid process in 
any form, and other conditions. There are many tribal or local differences 
in these respects, but on the whole the similarity of the skeletal parts throughout 
the continent is such that a classification of the Indians into more than one race 
becomes quite impossible. 

Taking all the above facts into consideration, and remembering that whatever 
differences are observable in the Indians in any direction are quite equaled if not 
exceeded in other large and fundamental single groups of humanity, such as the 
whites, the Asiatic yellow-browns, and others, we can arrive at only one possible 
conclusion, which is that the Indians, throughout the American continent, 
represent but one strain of humanity, one race, and that his variations are intra- 
racial fluctuations and developments, of more or less remote, frequently perhaps of 
pre- American origin. These variations in some instances may constitute sub- 
types or sub-faces, but they go no farther; and even in such more specialized 
groups the majority of the physical as well as the physiological characteristics 
are still intimately connected with those of the remainder of the Indians. 

Having reached the important conclusion of the fundamental unity of the 



562 



XIX International Congress of Americanists 



American race, we can now approach the second great question, namely, the 
antiquity of the race on this continent. The solution of this part of our problem 
may be approached in two ways: (a) by critical reasoning, and (b) by material 
evidence. 

(a) Can the Indian possibly be regarded as a true autocthon of America? 
In other words, could he have evolved from lower forms on this continent? There 
have been those (and they included even such men of science as Morton and, 
more recently, Ameghino) who were inclined to adopt or who actually pro- 
claimed this view. But in the present state of our knowledge it is easy enough 
to dispose of this hypothesis. The anthropologist of today knows definitely that 
man evolved from lower primates: there is abundant material evidence to that 
effect, regardless of other considerations. These primates must naturally have 
approached man in all important respects, a condition that could be realized 
only by advanced anthropoid apes; but no such forms have ever existed in any 
part of America. There weve on this continent Eocene and Oligocene lemurs 
and small monkeys, and ultimately the ordinary American monkeys, but nothing 
of the nature of an advanced type that could possibly be included in the more 
proximate ancestry of man. This fact alone suffices effectually to dispose of the 
notion of an American origin for the Indian. 

But there are other logical and decisive proofs that such origin was impossible. 
I shall mention but two. 

1. In the first place, the Indians, notwithstanding their diverse special 
characteristics, are on the whole exceedingly like the rest of mankind in every 
important feature, so that if we should accept the view that they originated in 
America, we would be obliged to conclude that all mankind originated here — a 
theory that has actually been advocated but which at the present time would 
probably seem monstrous even to those who would otherwise be disposed to 
believe in an American origin of the Indians. For it is well known that all the 
species that come or ever came near to man, live or lived in parts of the Old 
World, and that the earliest known forms of humanity belong equally to the Old 
World. It is to the warmer regions of the Old World that we are led to look for 
man's origin, and the rest of the earth could have been peopled only through 
the gradual dispersion of mankind, or of forms that eventually led to mankind, 
from these centers of development. 

2. Secondly, we know that a very early and culturally very primitive form 
of humanity had reached the central part of western Europe somewhere near 
the middle of the Quaternary or Glacial Epoch, and we would look in vain for 
any feasible mode of bringing such a primitive being at that time from America 
to what is now southwestern Germany, Belgium, France, Spain, and England. 

All these reasonings, nevertheless, would perforce be subverted if, as has 
happened so frequently within the last few decades in Europe, there were dis- 
covered on the American continent unquestionable skeletal or cultural remains 
of geologically ancient man. As might be expected from the great interest in 
such remains aroused by the European discoveries, with human credulity and 
especially the general inclination of less disciplined or trained minds toward 
the wonderful, with its dwarfs, giants, and beings of mysterious power or of 
great antiquity; and also as a result the many possibilities of accidental inclusion 
of human artifacts or remains in old strata, the occasional rapid fossilization of 



XIX CONGRESS OF AMERICANISTS 



HRDLICKA— PLATE III 




OROCZI, KONI RIVER, SIBERIA 



Hrdlicka — Genesis of the American Indian 



563 



human bones, and a possible commingling of such bones or other vestiges of man 
with the bones of ancient animals — claims to discoveries of skeletal or other 
remains of early American man have not been wanting. Announcements of 
such discoveries have appeared repeatedly both in North America and in South 
America, and have given rise to much speculation. On being subjected to 
thorough scientific scrutiny, however, the antiquity of the majority of the 
finds on which the structure of man's antiquity in America was to be reared, 
have vanished as evidence, and the residue is supported by testimony so defective 
that no conclusion of chronologic value can legitimately be based thereon. 1 
Impartially weighed, the probabilities are in every instance against rather than 
for great antiquity. So far, then, as physical anthropology is concerned, the entire 
subject can be summarized by the statement that, while we now possess numerous 
and in some instances great anthropological collections from this continent, 
and while many old caves, rock-shelters, and other sites, some of which have 
yielded remains of Quaternary or earlier animals, have been carefully explored, 
there is to this day not a single American human bone in existence, or on record, 
the geological antiquity of which can be demonstrated beyond doubt. It is 
in fact impossible for us to produce, though they might reasonably be expected, 
any specimens that can demonstrably compare in antiquity with the remains of, 
for instance, the predynastic Egyptians. 

As the question stands, therefore, even if we were inclined to accept man's 
great antiquity on this continent on the basis of some a priori consideration 
(for which notion, however, there is no adequate ground), we would seek in vain 
for support of the theory from material evidence; and we can not possibly have 
recourse to the personal opinions of those who, because of religious beliefs, 
temperamental inclination, other bias, or imperfect observations, have claimed 
and in some instances still claim the presence of man here in times far antedating 
the recent or even the Glacial period. It stands to reason that if man had origi- 
nated in America and spread thence to other continents, we should by this time have 
found some evidence at least of his local antiquity which could be freely acceptable 
to all of us, as are many of the remains of European early man. If there is no 
such evidence, or at least none that the most thorough students of the subject 
can conscientiously accept, then assuredly we are not justified at the present 
time in accepting the theory of any geological antiquity of the American race. 

Having reached the only possible conclusions on the two important questions 
thus far considered, namely, that the American aborigines represent a single race, 
and that the presence of this race on this continent is of no demonstrated geological 
antiquity, we reach the third and final complex of questions involved in the prob- 
lem of. the genesis of the American Indians— the whence, when, and how of his 
occupancy of the New World. 

Considering the primitive means of transportation of prehistoric man, it 
will be agreed, I think, that he could have come only from those parts of the Old 
World that lie nearest to America. These portions are the western coast of north- 
ern Africa, northwestern Europe, and particularly the northeastern parts of Asia; 
and geology shows that there were no nearer lands or other than perhaps a far 

1 Detailed treatment of this question from all aspects and especially from that of anthropology, 
will be found in the writer's memoirs, particularly Bulletins 33 and 52 of the Bureau of American 
Ethnology. 



564 



XIX International Congress of Americanists 



northern Asiatic- American land connection, within the period that can be assigned 
to man's existence. 

Between Africa and South America, however, at their nearest approach, 
there are nearly 2,000 miles of distance, and the separation between the nearest 
points of North America and Europe is even much greater. It is not at all 
likely, to say the least, that man reached the American continent from either 
of these directions except in historic times, after he had sufficiently developed a 
means of navigation ; and this likelihood would hold equally true if he had come 
by way of Iceland or Greenland, for even there the ocean stretches are very con- 
siderable. 

But, turning to the Asiatic continent, we find no such insuperable difficulties. 
Only thirty miles separate the two continents at Bering strait, and in clear 
weather American land is visible from the hills of East Cape. North of Bering 
strait there existed, it seems, until relatively recent times, actual land connection 
over which many animals reached the New World, and which could ^have served 
as a direct bridge for man, but as yet no direct evidence has been obtained on 
this point. / The Bering sea itself, however, could possibly have been crossed, by 
way of St Lawrence island or even farther south. And two thousand miles 

farther south there is the long semilunar chain 
of the Aleutians, which reach to within 400 
miles of Kamchatka, and even that distance 
is broken nearly into halves by the Comman- 
der islands. It is true that the sea here is 
rough, and fogs prevail, but from what we 
know of the achievements in navigation by 
the natives of that coast, in skin boats, in 
^1 recent times, it is within the range of possi- 
t bility that these conditions, could have been 
overcome and the distance covered by men 
of earlier times. Here, then, we have several 
practicable routes by which the Asiatics could 
have reached America, and their presence, 
with the absence of other such routes else- 
where, gives strong support to the view that 
those who eventually became the American 
aborigines reached this continent from north- 
eastern Asia. 

Let us now turn to racial evidence. We 
have passed above in brief review the princi- 
pal physical and physiological characteristics 
that distinguish the American aborigines. 

Where, in the Old World, are there or 
were there people who approach this type 
most closely? 

This was surely not in Africa, for there 
is little in common between the negro and 

A _ , XT „ . the Indian. It was not in historic Europe, 

Fig. 1. — Two Golds on the Nijni ,,. , , .... , . , , 

Mari. southeastern Siberia. which, during that time, and barring a 




Hrdlicka — Genesis of the American Indian 



565 



few Asiatic incursions, was peopled only by the white race. If we turn to 
Asia, however, we see that large parts of Siberia and the eastern coast of the 
continent, with much of Malaysia and even Polynesia, were and still are peopled 
by nations and tribes which differ more or less from one another, owing to ad- 
mixture and local differentiation, but which on the whole are of a type that 
in most of its essentials is identical with and in others close to that of the Indian. 
This type persists to this day with particular purity in certain parts of the Philip- 
pine islands (such as among the Igorrot), in Formosa, a large portion of Tibet, 
parts of western China, in Mongolia, and over many parts of Siberia. It can 
frequently be met in China proper, in Korea, and in Japan. It is a type which is 
characterized by the same range of color as well as quality and peculiarities of 
distribution of hair; by the same dark-brown eyes with yellowish conjunctiva 
and slight to moderate slant; by similar prominence of the cheek-bones and 
characteristics of the nose, as well as other parts of the face; by close resemblance 
in the rest of the body; and, in addition, by similar mentality and behavior, 
with close affinities in other functions, as well as in numerous habits and customs. 
The physical resemblances between some members of the Asiatic groups and the 
average American Indians are such that if a member of one or the other were 
transplanted and his body and hair dressed like those of the tribe in the midst 
of which he was placed, he could not possibly be distinguished physically by any 
means at the command of the observer. 

Such resemblances can not be fortuitous: they show that eastern Asia has 
been and in large measure still is peopled by a type of humanity which, while 
no more homogeneous than, for example, the white race, stands on the whole 
nearest of all the human types to the American aborigines. Given the close 
proximity of the two continents which would permit the passage from one to the 
other of people even in a relatively primitive state of culture, and finding that, 
outside of heterogeneous immigrants and mixtures, the two regions are peopled 
to this day by radically the same type of humanity, we have the strongest possible 
argument for the unity of origin of the eastern Asiatics and the American Indians. 
And as man can not be assumed to have originated in America and to have 
migrated to Asia, there remains the one possible conclusion that our aborigines 
were derived from the Asiatic continent; and they must have come by the 
northern routes, which were not only the most practicable but were the only ones 
that would enable man in the earlier stages of culture to reach the New World. 
The Pacific islands were not peopled until relatively recent times, later than 
America itself, and hence need not be considered in this connection any more than 
historic Europe or Africa. If any parties of these islanders ever reached the Ameri- 
can continent, they could have come only after the Indians had spread over it 
and were well established, and while such parties could have introduced perhaps 
a few cultural peculiarities, they could not materially have affected the popula- 
tion. 

Granting, on the basis of the above considerations, that the American 
aborigines came originally from Asia, we are still confronted by the two important 
questions as to when and how this immigration could have been effected. 

As to the time, we have no direct evidence and can hardly hope for any; 
yet it seems that we can approach a solution of this mooted question rather closely 
in an indirect way. 



566 



XIX International Congress of Americanists 



It is self-evident that before man could have migrated from Asia he must 
have peopled that continent; and he must have peopled it in relatively large 
numbers, for only that would have enabled him to overrun such an immense 
territory. Man does not -migrate like birds — he spreads. He is gregarious, and 
he is a creature of habits, one of the strongest of which is attachment to his home, 
whether the limited site of a sedentary community or the larger territory of a 
nomad tribe. He will move only because of compulsion, such as may be caused 
by enemies, some calamity, or the exhaustion of resources; or because of better 
prospects ahead in the way of climate or food. He can not be supposed to have 
reached the colder northeastern limits of Asia before the warmer, richer, and more 
available parts of that continent were settled or hunted over; and he could not 
have reached America, of course, before all this took place. We are able then 
to establish one definite landmark in reference to the time of the beginning of the 
peopling of America: it could only have followed that of Asia. 

This leads us to the second step in our quest, namely, the peopling of Asia 
itself, and more particularly of its northern portions. 

Archeological researches in northern Asia, including Japan and China, are 
still in their beginning, nevertheless they indicate the presence, over a wide 
territory, of many remains of human occupancy, in the form of burial mounds and 
of ruins and other signs of man's activity. The great majority of these remains 
are known to be of no great antiquity, dating from historic or late prehistoric 
times; but there are also older mounds, cave remains, and dwelling sites which 
yield only stone and bone implements, and primitive pottery. These latter 
remains are the earliest in northern Asia thus far discovered, and the culture they 
represent corresponds generally to that of parts of the neolithic epoch of 
Europe. And what is true of cultural applies also to the skeletal remains from 
these sites — they show relatively modern forms, much like those that existed in 
the Old World during the neolithic age. We have therefore no evidence, or even 
a promise of evidence, so far, that these portions of the Asiatic continent were 
peopled except at a relatively recent period. All this leads to the strong presump- 
tion that the beginning of migration into America did not take place before the 
time of the European neolithic period, which, reduced to years, would be some- 
where between ten thousand years ago and the dawn of the historic period in 
the Old World. 

Here, however, the claim might be urged that perhaps northern Asiatic 
man had a different origin from the European neolithic population, and may have 
reached the northern confines of Asia before the more westerly branch or branches 
of humanity peopled most of Europe. To this we may answer that it would be 
merely an hypothesis unsupported by any material evidence. The northern 
Asiatic man of all periods is too near in every important respect to the white man 
to be regarded as a distant relative, much less as a different species, as he would 
necessarily be if he had a separate origin ; and there is nothing that would even 
suggest his presence in northern Asia before the existence of neolithic man of 
Europe. It seems much more justifiable to accept the view that he was derived 
from the same stock as the European neolithic population, and that he peopled 
Asia through migration by the central and southern routes. But granting, for 
the sake of argument, the wholly improbable supposition that he had developed 
apart in or to the south of Asia, we would still have to assume that, having 



Hrdlicka — Genesis of the American Indian 



567 



reached a physical and cultural status practically identical with the later pre- 
historic European, and having spread over about as much territory as he would 
have covered in coming from Europe or Asia Minor, and that really in the face of 
greater obstacles, his advent in the northeastern limits of the Asiatic continent 
could not have been any earlier than it would have been had he started from, the 
west and passed over the great central steppes. The assumption, therefore, of a 
separate origin of the north-Asiatic and consequently the American man from 
that of the European, would not make the Indian any more ancient. 

The question of a possible earlier, pre-neolithic, immigration to America from 
the European northwest, requires little attention. The later paleolithic man 
of Europe lived during the ultimate phases and the recession of the last ice inva- 
sion, when the northwest of Europe, barring the southern portion of what is now 
England, was as yet scarcely inhabitable or passable for primitive man, as was 
probably also the case with the larger portion of northeastern America. How 
could he have reached this continent? Still earlier in Europe we have the 
Neanderthal man, and obviously no one would claim that he could have reached 
America and evolve the Indian. 

Thus, from whatsoever aspect we take the question, the when of the peopling 
of America does not yield to answer except in terms of moderate antiquity 
corresponding in all probability with that of the neolithic European. 

It remains for us to give thought to the mode or modes of man's advent in 
the New World, and his subsequent spread and multiplication on this continent. 
Here it will be necessary, in the first place, to free ourselves from all notion of mass 
migration. The northeastern portions of the Asiatic continent were never fit, 
within man's time, either to harbor or to permit the migration of any large number 
of human beings at one time. The only rational conclusion in this respect seems 
to be the following: The northeastern Asiatic man, in relatively small nomadic 
or seminomadic groups, hunted and fished along the rivers and sea-coast, living 
in proximity. As game diminished through this hunting or from other causes, 
he followed it, not southward where other tribes were doubtless established, but 
farther northward and eastward, in the direction of least resistance and of grea-ter 
abundance, until he reached the Kuriles, Kamchatka, and later the northeastern 
extremity of Asia. Before arriving at the limits of the mainland, he was doubtless 
already well provided with and expert in the use of boats capable under favorable 
circumstances of making long sea voyages. Some party then in all probability 
struck out, or was driven eastward, reaching the Aleutian chain. Once discovered, 
these islands served as a natural bridge, over which, in the course of time, groups 
of Siberian natives reached Alaska and the American continent. Or a party 
first crossed by way of Bering strait, or possibly by the still more northerly land 
connection, if it existed; and doubtless in the course of time they utilized all 
the practicable means of ingress to the New World. Once on the American con- 
tinent, full of game and free of people, they would not turn back, unless to bring 
their families and fellows, but would follow the game, spread rapidly and multiply, 
and under favoring conditions it would not have taken many centuries to people 
both North America and South America. 

At all events, whatever the circumstances of the first peopling of the American 
continent may have been, it may be safely assumed that only relatively small 
parties reached the new land at the same time, and that there was no migration 



568 



XIX International Congress of Americanists 



of whole peoples. But these comings were doubtless repeated; the news of 
the new land must have reached those left behind, so that the first parties would 
have been followed soon by others, irregularly in all probability, and on the 
whole very slowly, but indefinitely. Quite likely there were even various 
rediscoveries of the New World in different parts of its northwestern limits, 
and the immigration may be assumed to have continued from the time the 
first Asiatic parties reached the new land, during Neolithic time, to the historic 
period, when parties of Eskimo were found to trade across St Lawrence island 
and Bering strait. 

The newcomers, though all belonging to the same main race, were evidently 
not strictly homogeneous, but represented several distinct sub-types of the yellow- 
brown people, with differences in culture and language. 

The first of these sub-types to come over was, according to many indications, 
the dolichocephalic Indian, represented in North America today by the great 
Algonquian, Iroquois, Siouan, and Shoshonean stocks, farther south by the 
Piman-Aztec tribes, and in South America by many branches extending over large 
parts of that continent from Venezuela and the coast of Brazil to Tierra del Fuego. 

Next came, it seems, what Morton called the "Toltec" type, quite as Indian 
as the other, but marked by brachycephaly. This type settled along the north- 
west coast, in the central and eastern mound region, in the Gulf states, the 
Antilles, Mexico (including Yucatan), over much of Central America, reaching 
finally the coast of Peru and other parts of northern South America. 

Still later, and when America was already well peopled, there came, according 
to all indications, the Eskimo and the Athapascan Indians. The former, finding 
resistance in the south which he could not overcome, remained in and spread over 
the far-north land, developing various environmental physical modifications that 
have removed him, on the whole, farther from the Indians than is the case with 
any other branch of the yellow-brown people. The Athapascans, a virile brachy- 
cephalic type, on the one side closely allied physically tp the prevailing Mongolian 
type of northeastern Asia and on the other to the earlier American brachycephals, 
may have reached the continent before the Eskimo. However this may be, their 
progress southward was evidently also blocked, compelling the body of the enlarg- 
ing tribe to remain in Alaska and northwestern Canada; but along the western 
coast some contingents succeeded in penetrating as far as California, where^they 
left the Hupa, and to Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and parts of northern Mexico, 
where we know them to this day as the Lipan and Apache. 

This, in brief, seems to be the story of the genesis of the American Indians 
as derived from the present and generally accepted anthropological evidence. 
There are still many dark places which future knowledge may illuminate. The 
subject calls for continued research, especially in our Northwest, and, above all, 
in eastern Asia. 

United States National Museum 
Washington, D. C. 



XIX CONGRESS OF AMERICANISTS 



H RDLI CK A — PLATE VIII 




IGORROT WOMAN, PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 



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